That’s what happened on Edward Lane in Catasauqua on Tuesday morning. About a dozen babies following their mother fell through a grate as she hopped from street to curb.

They chirped in distress as the disconcerted and fretful mama flapped and quacked back and forth, eventually plopping beneath a tree with the one duckling that made the jump.

The neighbors came out. So did the fire department. So did the police.

“The duckies were following mom and mom hopped onto the sidewalk, and the rest of the duckies were just falling down the drain one by one,” said Gonzalo Salcedo, a resident who witnessed the catastrophe and called 911. “I felt bad. I saw one of them made it ... but the other [11] fell right after each other. They couldn’t make the jump.”

The public works department was busy with a water leak somewhere, so firefighters came out to remove the storm grate — a process that involved chains and winches and took some time.

“It’s not like there’s a specific duck-in-a-drain course,” said volunteer firefighter Zach Bilder.

The training they do get, broadly, is on “confined space rescue." Then they add a little improvisation.

Usually the grates pop right up, as in the case of a cat on the corner of 10th and Race streets last week. Firefighter Samuel Safadi named him Freddy.

He helped with another duck rescue a few weeks ago in North Catasauqua, where the babies kept running back and forth in the sewer between the two grates.

The ducklings of Edward Lane stayed in their paralyzed cluster for the 45 minutes it took four firefighters and the occasional neighbor to release the grate from the clutches of the asphalt. At some point during the ordeal, a handful of neighborhood kids reluctantly got on a school bus not 10 yards from the scene.

At 9 a.m. precisely, Safadi went down and lifted the ducklings out, naming them as he went.

“This is Charlie,” he said. “That’s Freddy. This one’s Brian.”

Other firefighters brought the ducklings to the mother — or as close to her as they could get. She was a bit skittish. So were some of the ducklings, who had to be herded toward her.

Neighbors followed the journey with their phones as chances of adoption quickly faded away.

“This is the most excitement I’ve seen here in a while,” said Edward Lane resident Rob Mathes.

Soon enough the duck parade had reformed and marched away.

And that’s what happened on Edward Lane on Tuesday morning.

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